


Whole

by valamerys



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Darkest Timeline, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Suicide, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 19:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8460580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valamerys/pseuds/valamerys
Summary: Cassian has lost his wings. Nesta has lost her humanity. brief oneshot of SadFeels





	

“Don’t you dare.”

Cassian knows it’s Nesta. But he doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t move at all from where he stands balanced precariously on the railing of the balcony, one arm around the pillar next to him as he looks down.

The mountainside goes on for miles below him, the craggy rock face unimaginably distant and Velaris twinkling beyond. The early evening air ruffles his hair and the faint wind calls to his blood like it always does, the oldest and best thing he knows. It’s a call he’ll never be able to answer again.

Cassian has lost his wings.

Despite the best healers in the Night Court, the delicate membranes were too ravaged. They started dying, and then infection set in… after the amputation, two ragged, aching stumps are all that’s left. He imagines he can feel Nesta’s eyes on them, and that as much as anything gets him to turn and look at her over his shoulder.

Nesta’s jaw is set as she gazes at him and she’s so beautiful it’s like a kick to the chest: it hurts. It hurts to see the evidence of how badly he failed her. It hurts to know she must hate him for it. It hurts to think there might have been a time he could imagine her wanting him, a world in which he might have allowed himself to picture them together, and it can’t be this one, now that he’s nothing, now that he’s worthless. It’s been three weeks since the surgery. He hasn’t come out of his room, and he hasn’t seen her, since. 

“Do you want something, Nesta.” 

He can’t summon the will to put anything behind it, surprise or anger or kindness, it just hangs there, a dead, empty thing. The way all of him feels.

“I want you to climb down from there before you do something even stupider than usual.”

 _Stupider than usual._ She’s insulting him like they’re back in her father’s home, just a plucky human girl and the idiot she’s flirting with, and Cassian doesn’t know whether he wants to laugh or cry at it, if he could manage either.

But slowly, he gets down from the railing. All of his movements are slow, now, necessarily more calculated—wings are thirty odd pounds of muscle and bone that’re just _gone;_ his balance is completely shot and he finds himself pitching forward when he walks, used to having to balance them out. Especially with the phantom pains he wakes with that do their best to convince him that they’re still there, twitching in anguish, he has to be deliberate about every step, every shift.

“They said I might find you like that.” Nesta says quietly, an edge to it. “I didn’t really believe them.” Her arms are folded across her chest, her whole countenance wound tight and hard and guarded.

“Try having wings and losing them.” Cassian says, his voice still so _empty_ he almost doesn’t recognize it coming out of himself. “You’ll believe it then.” 

“I’ve lost my whole life.” Nesta’s tone is as cold and bitter as his is broken. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a child.”

“Then don’t come in here and belittle my pain.”

“I am _not_ ,” she says passionately. “I don’t pretend to know how awful this must be for you. But while you’re stewing up here, I am learning to be a monster.”

“Nes—“

“Fae are people to you,” she bites, not letting him interrupt. “This thing I’ve become doesn’t horrify _you_ to even look at. But fae are the creatures I had nightmares about as a child, they’re the things we’re told will steal us from our beds if we’re not good. Do you know how sick it makes me to know that Elain has to live like this? How she flinches every time she sees my ears, how we can never go home, never tell the people who love us what’s happened?”

She lets that sit between them for a moment. “But it doesn’t matter.” She goes on, quietly. “I _hate_ this, I hate every second of this more than you can imagine, but Elain needs me. So I will shut the fuck up and let your band of demons teach me so that I can fight in this war.” Her eyes are sharp as she looks at him, angry and sad and something else he can’t identify. “We deserve to mourn. But people need us, and they need us now.”

“You don’t understand,” He says thickly.

“Then make me understand.”

“I am nothing without my wings,” he steps closer to her as he speaks, puts an anguished hand on his chest. “I am _lower_ than a monster. If I ever set foot in a war camp again they’d kill me and consider it charitable that they’d even deign to touch me to do it.” At the very least, he feels _something_ , finally, and if it’s something raw and painful, so be it.

“I have to stop myself from flinging myself off the balcony every ten minutes, not even because I want to die but because the air is my _home_ ,” He sees pain flicker across her face at the word, “and I’ve never had to think twice about it before. And every time I stop myself and remember that I’ll never fly again it’s like the king’s magic hits me all over again, it hurts that badly. Think if the cauldron took your arms off, think about how many things you would suddenly be unable to do—that’s a shadow of what this is.”

Nesta steps closer to him, tips her head back. “If the cauldron took my arms then I’d rip out the king’s throat with my teeth.” She pauses, decides to push as she looks him in the eyes. “And I still wouldn’t stand on that railing and think about going over.”

“You talk about people needing me,” He says swiftly, and he’s certain what he feels is anger now, hot in his throat, “But Nesta, I’m a burden to my family like this. I’d be laughed out of the court of nightmares, no Illyrian would ever respect me. I can relearn to fight, I still have magic, but I will never be able to keep up with them again. I can’t do my job. I can’t do _any_ job. An Illyrian with no wings isn’t welcome anywhere, isn’t anything more than a useless misshapen tragedy to be pitied.

“So yes,” he spits, “Sometimes I wish that blast had killed me, and yes, sometimes I think about finishing the job.”

Nesta’s just… looking at him, and he can’t read her expression. Something in it makes him slip, the truth spilling out in an unbidden rush.

“I couldn’t protect you when I was whole,” He whispers. “What chance do I have of it now?”

Nesta’s mouth falls open and _cauldron_ , she’s still stupidly beautiful, and she’s standing so, so close to him. He knows he shouldn’t be thinking of it but it’s impossible not to, when all he wants to do is wrap himself up in her and forget about the wings and the war and anything else that’s ever happened. And it’s a pipe dream if there ever was one; if he was ever worthy of thinking those thoughts he’s not now, now he probably shouldn’t be tainting the air she breathes.

Suddenly Cassian is tired, and she’s still staring at him. He shakes his head. “What do you want from me, Nesta?”

She takes his face between her hands and kisses him.

All Cassian can register is the warmth of her lips and absolute shock, like lightning in his veins. He kisses her back, of course he kisses her back, it’s like answering a question he was born knowing the answer to, even as he can’t possibly fathom that _she wants him_. This must be a dream or a cruel joke, but whatever it is he’ll take it because it tastes like _Nesta_ , and he opens his mouth, pulls her in as he kisses her because he wants more of it, forever—

Until Nesta breaks it, not so much because she intends to as because her face crumples in a single sob; Cassian feels like his heart has been rendered anew and broken in the same few moments as he puts a hand over hers on his face.

“Nesta,” his voice is ragged, “what—“

“I’m so scared, Cassian.” It’s a thread of a whisper drawn around tears. Her shoulders shake with the effort to not let any more out. “Don’t you dare leave me here alone. Don’t you _dare_.” She buries her face into his shoulder, unable to restrain her sobs, and Cassian holds her like she’s made of glass.

“I won’t, sweetheart.” He’s crying too now, voice cracking as he rubs her back comfortingly. “I’m right here.”

 

 

this fic is also on [tumblr](http://valamerys.tumblr.com/tagged/mine)

**Author's Note:**

> For the tumblr anon who asked for angsty nessian may i present THE ANGSTIEST™


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